Witnesses testify about East Bangor crash that killed motorcyclists

Tuesday

Dec 4, 2012 at 12:01 AM

Tammy Morris wiped tears from her eyes as she described to a jury Monday how she watched a fireball engulf motorcyclist Keith Michaelson after John P. Heaney's pickup truck careened into him and five bikers.

TOM SHORTELL

Tammy Morris wiped tears from her eyes as she described to a jury Monday how she watched a fireball engulf motorcyclist Keith Michaelson after John P. Heaney's pickup truck careened into him and five bikers.

Morris had allowed the caravan of motorcycles to get in front of her on Route 512 as she drove south out of East Bangor on July 1, 2011, she said. She said she was a car length behind them when Heaney's Dodge Ram came around a blind curve in their lane. As she detailed the accident that killed Michaelson and fellow biker Michael Zadoyko at Heaney's vehicular homicide trial, she admitted she's still haunted by feelings of guilt for letting them ahead of her.

"I saw a man blow up in front of me," she cried on the stand before Judge Paula Roscioli, saying she was too distraught to drive for six months after the crash.

Assistant District Attorney Bill Blake said in his opening arguments that Heaney, a retired Plainfield, N.J., police officer, drunkenly fishtailed out of his lane, striking two of the seven bikers and injuring four others who had to swerve out of the way.

Heaney had consumed two beers and between two and four vodka tonics before the crash after a day of fly fishing in the Stroudsburg area, officials said. Officers said Heaney smelled of alcohol when they interviewed him after the crash, and he refused to grant a blood sample that would have shown his blood-alcohol content, he said.

"The only thing I can remember was waking up and someone bouncing off my windshield," Blake said, quoting a statement Heaney provided police after the crash.

Defense attorney Dennis Charles, however, argued Heaney was not drunk but passed out from a medical affliction. Heaney had undergone gastric bypass surgery three years earlier, he said, and the surgery left his body unable to fully control his blood sugar levels. After a day outside in the heat and drinking Gatorade and club sodas, Heaney's blood sugar plummeted, which caused him to faint, the attorney said. As proof, he argued the 305-pound Heaney still passed the field sobriety tests police put him through despite being weakened and in shock.

Prosecutors argue there were indications Heaney was drunk during one of the three field sobriety tests.

"He walks the nine steps of the line like Nadia Comaneci," Charles said, referring to the Olympic medal-winning Romanian gymnast.

Heaney told police at the time of the accident that Heaney suffered a multitude of injuries unrelated to the crash, including partial paralysis of his arm and trouble sleeping. Two medical experts determined Heaney passed out from hypoglycemia, Charles said, and prosecutors didn't even have a BAC test to prove Heaney was drunk, he said.

"Even now, after I gave them 1,000 pages of medical evidence, they are going to try to make those facts stick," he said, referring to the police reports of Heaney's glassy eyes and smell of alcohol.

Charles also said a witness would testify one of the bikers not injured in the crash assaulted Heaney, punching him in the head and arm. However, neither Morris nor George Curtis, the one biker not harmed in the crash, mentioned a fight in their testimony today.

Curtis said the men were all members of Last Chance Motorcycle Club, a group of recovering drug addicts and alcoholics who loved to ride. The members were as close as family and were on their way to pay their respects at a late member's wake when the crash occurred, he said.

Heaney rolled his truck onto the side of the road and began walking toward the wreckage, apologizing and asking the remaining men what they wanted him to do, Curtis said. The stunned bikers cursed at him and yelled at him to stay away, Curtis said.